Our new variety of lily plant originated as a seedling which first flowered in Woodland, Wash., in 1993. The breeding efforts had as their objective the production of large-flowered Oriental and Oriental/Aurelian hybrids in shades of yellow, gold, and peach, suited to forcing into flower out of season, heretofore unknown in the lily breeding art. Edward A. McRae acchieved the desired objective by pollinating an Oriental/Aurelian hybrid seedling with deep red flowers with a soft gold flowered Oriental/Aurelain hybrid. The unnamed Oriental seedling which was the mother plant of `Golden Stargazer` was a complex hybrid, produced by embryo-culturing from a cross between an upfacing red Oriental hybrid and a red/gold Oriental/Aurelian hybrid itself originated from embryo culturing. The original maternal crosses came from material unique to his own breeding lines and not available in the trade. Several siblings of this mother plant also produced by embryo culturing from the same complex cross, but all the other siblings clones are sterile. The pollen parent was a complex second-generation Oriental/Aurelian hybrid with large, wide-petalled golden yellow flowers, produced by embryo culturing by Judith Freeman McRae from a cross between an outfacing yellow complex Oriental/Aurelian hybrid and a pendant buff to gold complex Oriental/Aurelian hybrid. Judith Freeman McRae produced both of the original paternal grandparents by embryo-culturing as well, from material unique to her own breeding lines and not available in the trade.
The flowers of our new lily are characterized by an outfacing to upfacing orientation, large size, unusually thick substance, wide open-bowl form with broad tepals, ascending pedicels, and particularly by their golden yellow coloration with flush of deeper orange-gold along the basal midribs and with small, soft red to peach papillae. This combination is completely new in the Oriental and Oriental/Aurelian hybrid lilies. In addition, the clone possesses to a high degree desirable characteristics of hybrid vigor. The clone is a good grower and propagator as observed at Woodland, Wash.
Our new variety of lily plant has been asexually reproduced by us and under our direction at Woodland, Wash. Successive generations produced by natural propagation from bulblets, by bulb scale propagation, and by tissue culturing from bulb scale explants have demonstrated that the novel and distinctive characteristics of our new variety are fixed and hold true under asexual propagation from generation to generation.